CHRISTIE RELENTS ON MARIJUANA

After nearly 18 months of using delaying tactics to block
implementation of a bill that would allow the use of marijuana for
medical purposes, Gov. Chris Christie announced Monday he will allow
the state to begin dispensing marijuana to patients who derive a
demonstrated medical benefit.

The decision is long overdue. It will allow patients suffering from
cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and other ailments, many of them
terminal, to legally use marijuana to relieve their symptoms.

Of the 16 states that have legalized medical marijuana, New Jersey's
rules will be among the most strict. Patients who use marijuana to
relieve pain won't be allowed to grow their own marijuana at home.
There will be just six nonprofit groups licensed to grow and sell to
patients who are cleared by their doctors and the state.

Christie was never wrong in wanting to ensure that medical marijuana
in New Jersey doesn't become a wide-open door to legalized marijuana
for all, as it comes close to being in California.

But he was wrong in seemingly forgetting about the true pain that some
people endure and that marijuana helps relieve, while repeatedly
throwing up new roadblocks for key legislative Democrats behind the
law who wanted to reach a compromise on reasonable rules governing
legalized medical marijuana.

All the political games of the past year and a half have meant that
people suffering from constant nausea, aches, cloudy vision and other
symptoms that marijuana alleviates have had to continue to risk arrest
by purchasing or growing marijuana illegally.

Christie's waiting for assurances from the federal Department of
Justice that it wouldn't prosecute any state workers involved with the
medical marijuana administration was silly.

The federal government has never gone after state workers in places
where medical marijuana is legal and most likely never will. Christie,
of all people -- a former U.S. attorney for New Jersey -- should know
that.

In 2009, not long after Christie left that post, the Justice
Department put out a memo that urged local federal prosecutors not to
focus their strained investigative resources on patients and
caregivers complying with state medical marijuana laws.

We're glad Christie has finally come to see the light on this and is
ready to show that he cares enough about people who are in pain to
help them and take away some of their anxiety. The state should waste
no more time in moving to the implementation phase.